2 Comments

  1. Aminah
    April 3, 2018 @ 6:14 pm

    I would like to use this method to bind together a large amount of sympathy cards of varying sizes. Any tips or tricks you might suggest for a project like this?
    Would you recommend hot glue or the pva glue?
    Any tips you would share would be greatly appreciated.
    Thank you in advance!

    • admin
      April 4, 2018 @ 1:23 pm

      Aminah,

      Since you will be working with cards, my guess is that you will have a variety of paper stocks in this one bound collection. Some will be glossy, others textured, etc. Using a simple glued binding, no matter which glue, will probably not hold up well to use. I would do 2 additional things before gluing the spine.

      First, I would use a wood rasp or course sandpaper to roughen the paper on the spine and expose more fibers during the gluing process. This is a common technique in commercial glue binding and creates more surface area for the glue to adhere to.

      Second, I sometimes enhance the strength and durability of a glued book spine by cutting a series of shallow grooves across the spine with a coping saw before gluing. This creates more surface area again for the glue to bond too. I usually place a piece of heavy cotton thread into the groove as well so each page is bonded to the threads as well as the adjoining pages.

      If you are not in a hurry, I’d use PVA glue on this project. This will give you more working time – specially important if you place the thread into the grooves (you want a good bond between the paper and the thread.)

      I hope that helps. Please send me a photo of the finished project. I’d love to see it!

      ~Andrew